Byanyima tasks govt with finding and producing Mugumya in court

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The wife of jailed Dr Kizza Besigye, Winnie Byanyima, has appealed to Government to find opposition activist Sam Mugumya and produce him in court.

Mugumya’s whereabouts remain unknown 23 days after he went missing from a motel in Nyamitanga Division, Mbarara City.

In a Habeas Corpus application before the civil division of the High Court in Kampala this month, Mugumya’s lawyer, Tumusiime Kakuru, said his client was picked up by security operatives and has since been detained at a military facility in Mbuya, Kampala, under the Directorate of Intelligence and Security.

Sam Mugumya’s whereabouts remain unknown 23 days after he went missing from a motel in Nyamitanga Division, Mbarara City. (Courtesy/File)

“Sam Mugumya is my son. He is @kizzabesigye1 son. We motivated him, mentored him, and he worked as a volunteer on @kizzabesigye1 campaigns,” Byanyima, who serves as the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, stated on X, formerly Twitter on Friday, September 19.

“I join his parents to demand that the government produces him in court or release him. If he is dead, give us his body. We must honour and bury our beloved Sam. This is our right,” Byanyima added, with a hashtag #FreeSamMugumya.

However, the Police and the military have denied knowing Mugumya’s whereabouts.

“I am spokesperson of the Uganda Police Force, but I haven’t got any briefing about the arrest of Sam Mugumya,” Police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke said during the weekly press briefing in Kampala on September 15.

“Mugumya is not in any of our detention facilities,” he added after being questioned about the missing activist who is aspiring for Rukungiri Municipality parliamentary seat under the newly formed People’s Front for Freedom party in the 2026 general election.

Asked during a local TV talk-show in Kampala on September 15 to account for Mugumya’s disappearance, army spokesperson Maj. Gen. Felix Kulayigye said: “We can’t [account for Mugumya’s disappearance] because as a citizen he was free to move to wherever he moved and it is not the first he has disappeared from this country and appeared in a foreign country.”

In a sworn affidavit in response to the habeas corpus application, Lt Col Edgar Musasizi, the director of civil affairs at the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs, said an extensive internal search had been carried out, but no record of Mugumya’s detention was found.

“I confirm that the said Sam Mugumya is not within our custody and we do not know about his whereabouts,” Musasizi told court.